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There has been a dramatic change in the projected path of the first hurricane of the season expected to make landfall on the United States.

The latest tracks for Category 4 storm Florence, released early Wednesday morning, now have the storm staying farther south, following the European model.

This means the storm will have less of an impact in northern North Carolina and southern Virginia and more of an impact on southern North Carolina, South Carolina and northern Georgia.

The storm is now expected to make landfall in the lower Outer Banks of North Carolina early Friday morning or possibly stay in the ocean before making a shift to the left toward South Carolina. It had been projected to shift north after making landfall.

Historic and potentially catastrophic flooding is possible along with life-threating storm surges of up to 12 feet are possible along the coasts.

Some areas are expected to see between 20 and 30 inches of rain through early next week in the area shaded in purple in the second image above.

The storm, with winds of 130 mph, is about 505 miles southeast of Cape Fear, North Carolina, moving between 15 and 20 mph

More than 1.5 million people have been ordered to evacuate along 300 miles of coastline.

"They haven't seen anything like what's coming at us in 25-30 years, maybe ever," President Trump said while appearing with FEMA officials in the Oval Office on Tuesday. "It's tremendously big and tremendously wet. A tremendous amount of water."

This continues to be a developing story. Check back to Daily Voice for updates.